From Human Guidance to Digital Assistance: EFL Thesis-writing Students’ Experiences of Support Before and After the AI Revolution

The emergence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) continues to disrupt the traditionally established processes in higher education institutions, including thesis supervision. While the challenges and benefits of AI use in academic contexts have been well documented, a knowledge gap exists in our understanding of how AI has changed students’ approach to thesis writing and supervisor feedback. This study contributes to the knowledge of the AI-motivated issues in thesis supervision with insights from in-depth interviews with eight EFL thesis students at an English-medium-instruction university with a compulsory thesis component. Findings suggest that the traditional expectations of thesis supervision have changed due to AI use. As lower-order issues can be addressed with AI, students now expect content and research process-related guidance. While AI poses considerable challenges due to interaction patterns, information relevance, and accuracy, students are learning to successfully navigate these challenges while taking full advantage of editing and language instruction functions that AI provides, thus significantly reducing their and their supervisors’ workload and logistics. Since these skills take time to develop, universities are advised to actively incorporate AI instruction in the Writing Center operations. Further suggestions on AI integration in the supervision process are provided.